#144

Interesting aspect. I have to listen to the video yet but It wouldn’t be the first time that the FDA mice-to-humans conversion multiplier is totally wrong. Joan Mannick cites rapamycin as an example. Rats only absorb 0.05% (that is what I recall, the number is very small anyway); the other 99.5% is metabolized or eliminated. She recounts that sophisticated pharmacological models had to be used to choose the doses in the human study she led.

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#145

I watched the video as well. I’m pretty sure the manufacturer of AX3, which is the brand of astaxanthin the ITP used, said the human equivalent dose was 12-24mg (the albatross dose of 2400mg was used in mice because it’s not bioavailable in mice, finally answering that burning question we all had) but their brand is 3x more bioavailable, which technically supports the 36-84mg you mentioned if someone is to use a “regular” astaxanthin.

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#146

I am very confused by the issue of astaxanthin dosing. First, the issue of accumulation. You can only accumulate something if it’s not getting used up or expelled. Vitamin C is water soluble, so it’s relatively easy to expel in urine. A fat soluble antioxidant has a chance to get accumulated in fat tissue, but it can also be expelled in poop, if. f.ex. it is taken on an empty stomach without fat, as suggested by Rimon in the video happens with astaxanthin (taken without fat). Now, antioxidants also get used up by neutralizing ROS, which is why you need a steady supply of antioxidants (there is also the issue of impact of one anti on another anti, like vit. C recycles vit. E, but let’s not complicate things for now). So far, so good.

Now, the suggestion is that asta is absorbed by the cell membrane, and is quite stable, which is already slightly puzzling to me, because the whole point of an antioxidant is that it captures ROS particles, so gets used up… so how is it “stable”, if we understand by that that it remains in the membrane without change… the only way that would happen is if asta didn’t interact with any other molecule, so was essentially inert, i.e. was not an antioxidant. But ok. Rimon says that asta accumulates preferentially, or first, in the eyes, brain, and to a lesser extent, skin. The example he gave is the dose of 10mg, where 4mg goes to eyes (presumably the macula), 4mg to the brain, and 2mg the skin.

Presumably, there is some kind of saturation point, where a given tissue has absorbed the maximum carotenoid it can. If I’m supplementing with astaxanthin, lutein, zeaxanthin and whatnot, f.ex. the eye macula stops at some point (other than topping off whatever gets used up), I don’t get the eye growing to the size of a basketball or anything.

Once the tissue has absorbed the max astaxanthin, if you keep supplementing, it’ll spill over to other tissues. So, if your skin is pink, presumably your eyes and brain have been fully saturated, and the spillover keeps going to the remaining tissues as they slowly saturate too. Btw. we do know that with high dose of asta, there have been reports of pink poop, so perhaps some spillover is expelled?

Here’s the confusion for me when it comes to supplementing - Rimon claims 10mg, already means accumulation in eyes, brain, skin at least. But accumulation is a function of time. Because if you use up astaxanthin and replace it with the same amount that was used up, you are not accumulating. To accumulate you need to add more than you use up. And if 10mg accumulates in eyes, brain, skin, then logically why would you ever need more than a 10-12mg/day dose of asta to eventually reach 100% saturation and then spill over to other tissues - it becomes a function of time. More will only make you reach the saturation point faster. This is similar to the discussion regarding creatine supplementation. You can megadose 20g/day, or go with 3-5g/day, and saturate with both, except it will go faster with 20g.

If that is so, why are we stressing over the dose of astaxanthin? As long as a few things are true:

1)Astaxanthin is stable enough that with appropriate dose, it can accumulate in tissues

2)Astaxanthin does indeed accumulate in brain, eyes, skin at a 10mg/day dose - then in time it must reach full saturation at least in those tissues.

3)Once full saturation in these tissues has been reached, if you keep supplementing with the 10mg, the asta has to go to other tissues - eventually, over time, as it accumulates it will saturate all tissues it is bioavailable for.

Therefore, if you simply persist at 10-12mg/day of astaxanthin, eventually it’ll be everywhere where it’s absorbable. Increasing the dose will only speed it up. The reason mice need higher doses is because they don’t absorb astaxanthin as well as humans do.

Therefore, unless 10-12mg/day is too slow to reach maximum effective saturation (say, it would take 50 years, lol) before you croak, why do we need a higher dose? Slow and steady at 10-12mg/day?

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#147

I have been using astaxanthin at 12 mg daily ever since the ITP has released their results. My skin is still a normal shade, so it is probably too low of a dose to saturate my skin. I’ve upped my dose to 24 mg daily to see what happens. I usually take it in the morning with a light breakfast, so I’ll try it at dinner time to see if there’s any issues.

Yes, I sometimes get red poop, but not always.

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#148

It did, I quoted the dose for every other product on the market.

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#149

Some interesting critical thinking Cronos. Note that Rimon the Wellness Messiah acknowledges that his tissue distribution estimates are purely speculative and not based on any data.

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#150

You have to start somewhere. I think his speculation is well-informed.

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#151

I upped my dose from 14mg to 35mg, 1 1/2 days ago. My turds have turned red, which I take as evidence that I’m not absorbing the whole dose.

I’m going to dial it back until we know for sure if this is, or is not, an indicator its not being absorbed. I also think its important to be able to pick up any bleeding, and I can’t do that if the astaxanthin is turning my shit red.

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#152

This is not how it works, and creatine uptake follows different principles. Creatine is actively transported into cells where it’s concentration is regulated. Therefore, in case of creatine, you could take 5 g daily or 20 g daily, in both cases you would end up with pretty much the same cellular concentrations, you just get there faster with 20 g daily. This does not apply to carotenoids. They are primarily absorbed by passive diffusion, which is not a regulated mechanisms. With diffusion the higher the concentration the higher the accumulation. That means that the more you ingest the more you accumumulate, and there isn’t really any saturation threshold!

I have never seen any evidence of a saturation with carotenoids. You will accumulate a lot more with 50 mg daily than with 10 mg daily and even more with a lot more than 50 mg daily. This is also supported by the fact that I have heard of reports of people getting pinkish skin from taking astaxanthin but only those taking super high doses, like at least 50 mg, probably 100 mg or more daily.

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